Rebecca White, 108; Resident of L.A. for More Than Century Pushed Self-Reliance

Rebecca Mitchell White, a resident of Los Angeles for more than a century, has died. She was 108.

White died Jan. 26 of natural causes, according to her grandson, David W. Williams of Lanesboro, Minn. In recent years she had made her home at Country Villa Terrace Healthcare, an assisted living center on West Pico Boulevard.

Her advanced age put her in the growing category of centenarians, people who live to be age 100. There are about 275,000 centenarians around the world, according to L. Stephen Coles, director of the Los Angeles Gerontology Research Group at UCLA.

Born Rebecca Mitchell in Newnan, Ga., on July 24, 1897, White moved to Los Angeles in 1903 with her parents and nine brothers and sisters.

She married Sam White, who served in the merchant marine, in 1918. The couple had two children: a daughter, Ouida, and a son, Sam.

White’s husband died in 1935. From then on she supported her children by working as a housekeeper. White also worked for Union Oil Co. in Los Angeles, where her job included some waitress work.

“My grandmother was a survivor type,” said Williams, who was raised in Los Angeles. “She was determined to be self-sufficient and she raised her children to be that way.”

Her son, Sam, became an entrepreneur who owned his own business manufacturing orthopedic appliances for replacement surgeries.

Her daughter, Ouida, married federal Judge David W. Williams, who in 1969 became the first African American federal jurist west of the Mississippi. Earlier, he volunteered to preside over about 4,000 criminal cases stemming from the Watts riots of 1965.

After she retired in the 1960s, White managed the apartment building she owned and lived in -- a gift from her daughter and son-in-law. She outlived both of her children and all of her siblings. She is survived by four grandchildren as well as great- and great-great grandchildren.

“She was very content to live on her own after her husband died,” Williams said of White. “Her children, grandchildren, great- and great-great grandchildren were her main interest.

“My grandmother would probably say she lived such a long life because she was not around men for most of those years.”